Egeberg: I don't know. While we'd be driving places, we would talk. He once asked me, 'What qualities would you like most in an individual in your command?' I thought about it and said, 'Courage.' He said to me: 'I'll tell you what they should be. First is loyalty, and don't forget it. Without loyalty you're on quicksand. Second is courage. Third is intelligence.'

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WWII: Interesting he should place loyalty first.

Egeberg: He was adamant about that. He was a sentimental man, too. Also, caring and loving. He would travel a lot through the villages in his jeep. One day he came back from one and he had a little black-and-white dog in his lap. He said to me: 'Doc, I couldn't resist this one. He got up out of a mud puddle and looked at me. Get him cleaned up.' He named him Blackie. Well, Blackie got sick and MacArthur stayed up all night with the dog. He had distemper. I found a Filipino vet, and he agreed. We wanted to put the dog to sleep, but MacArthur wouldn't hear of it. The dog's legs were paralyzed, and we rigged up some wheels for him to get around. The truce was accepted a few weeks later, and we left for Japan. I had to put the dog to sleep. It was the hardest thing I had to do. Sometime later, MacArthur and I were talking and he said, 'Doc, about Blackie.' And I told him: 'General, Blackie's dead. And I killed him.' At first I thought he was mad. Then he became more thoughtful and he remarked: 'I guess it was the right thing to do. Thank you, Doc.'

WWII: You said earlier that he was fool hardy. Any examples of such behavior?

Egeberg: At Tacloban our headquarters was at the Price House, and during dinner, there was one Zero that would buzz us. We knew what the plane was aiming at–us. Even though there was a red alert, MacArthur would make the meal continue as though we were dining at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. I couldn't quite forgive him for that. His whole staff was there! What if the plane had made a direct hit?

WWII: That must have made everyone very nervous.

Egeberg: Oh yes! There was one general who had never seen much action, whose tongue would get dry, and when he'd stick it out his upper plate would be on it. That did help defuse the situation–seeing this guy's false teeth on his tongue. MacArthur made us sit there. Everyone else was taking cover.

WWII: That does seem foolhardy.

Egeberg: While we were moving with the 1st Cavalry Division toward Manila, the Japanese blew the bridge before we could cross. The general was upset. We finally crossed the next day, and we kept going. Coming into Manila was very traumatic for MacArthur. He wanted to be in the thick of the fighting. We moved way ahead of our troops and arrived at Malacanan Palace. One soldier jumped up out of a foxhole and saluted, then said: 'General, you can't go in there. We haven't taken it yet!' MacArthur asked, 'Are any of our soldiers in there?' The soldier said no, that his group was the first to arrive and was digging in farther back. The general turned to me and said, 'Why don't you and Larry (Colonel Lloyd Lehrbas) go in and make sure there are no Japanese in the business part of the palace.' That was the only time he asked me to go in front of him in a place of danger. We proceeded into the palace. I took my carbine and began to go through the rooms. I had taken some rifle practice, and if the barn was close enough I could hit it. I remembered the Jimmy Cagney and Edward G. Robinson gangster movies when the cops knocked down the door. So, when I reached the first door, I kicked it open. I discovered, however, that I had not taken off the safety on the carbine. It's a good thing nobody was in there. After we cleared all the rooms, the general joined us. It was a large building. We were walking down its center when a Filipino woman approached us. She was the head housekeeper. The general spoke to her in Spanish and asked if any Japanese were in the building. She said there were some at the other end of the palace. He then turned into Manuel Quezon's office. He felt very emotional about Quezon (the exiled president of the Philippine Islands who died shortly before his country was liberated). He sat in his chair and reminisced. Meanwhile, I was thinking: There are Japanese running around this place! While MacArthur was talking, I wandered over to the window and saw a square concrete box that couldn't have been more than 40 or 50 yards away. In the box were two machine guns and two Japanese soldiers. I informed the general of what I had just seen and asked him if he didn't think we should get out of that room. He leaped up, went to the window, put his hands in his hip pockets and stared out into the muzzles of those two machine guns! He stood there for about 10 to 15 seconds. He turned and motioned for us to leave. I was the last one out. I hadn't gone five steps when those machine-gunners let loose. They tore up that room!

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